This Old House

Welcome

I’m Caitlin and that’s Ryan. Tela’s the one with the floppy ears and big nose.

In May 2010, we bought our first house in Ipswich, a coastal town on Massachusetts’ North Shore. It’s a circa 1845 antique with a barn on a small plot and we’ve got big plans for it.

When we’re not working on the house, Ryan works at an architecture firm and is in architecture school, and I work at a local museum. Together, we run RMc Designs, an architectural services studio. Check it out here. When we’re slacking on our DIY to-do list, you might find us taking in some live music, spending time with our families and friends, or hiking with the pooch.

We are renovating the house almost entirely on our own (with guest appearances from family and friends) and this is where I document our progress. It's a lot of work, but we are having fun and blogging our progress. Welcome to our digital scrapbook!

Wednesday, May 12, 2010

No news is still good news… but let’s get on to more important things

One of our very first purchases (besides you know, the house) will be a gas grill.

The question we're pondering and for all you Grill Masters out there is… how cheap can you go and still get something that does the trick and will last more than a couple summers? I’m taking a gander at a few options in the $200 range and though the price is right, I'm a little suspect since there's very few at that price point.

Sunday, May 9, 2010

Meanwhile...

Tela's been researching fireplace surrounds. She's taking her job very seriously.

And

We checked out Spencer-Peirce-Little Farm's Plow Day up in Newburyport. We saw some former HNE coworkers, took a house tour, saw a sheep shearing, the Morgan horses plow the field, and enjoyed an Ipswich IPA poured straight from the Mercury Brewing Tap Van.

Wednesday, May 5, 2010

No news is good news.

For anyone out there in the blogosphere wondering how we are progressing… fear not! However, I have found myself feeling a little silly for taking to the interweb with Very Big Real Estate News before it was completely a done deal.

We are moving along and when we have a (new) closing date set, we’ll be back.

Ipswich Top Ten Countdown - #5

Woodman’s (in neighboring Essex): Some people favor the Clam Box in Ipswich for fried clams, but we are pretty excited to find ourselves down the road from Woodman’s, a family-run clam shack started by Chubby and Bessie Woodman who in 1916 invented the Ipswich Fried Clam (in Essex, go figure). I mean... you can't make this stuff up!